Suna Suna no Naruto

by ShadowedAuthor

After the Genin exam debacle, when Iruka failed to arrive to save the day, Naruto was left to die in the deserts of Kaze no Kuni and his "salvation" at the hands of the Snake leaves him fundamentally changed. Wandering into Suna, his path naturally crosses with another sand-user, whose psychosis causes some awkward misunderstandings. No pairings.

2. Chapter 2: Teething Problems

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (rightfully owned by Masashi Kishimoto) nor any other implicated series, and I do not make any money out of this fiction. I will also add that any sections or phrases in this chapter that bear resemblance to works by the author are recreated in the same spirit of free usage and is not for profit.

A/N: Since the response to the first chapter of this story was so positive, I figured I would try my hand at writing onwards.

If you are coming to this story after having read my Silent Humanity/Hidden Humanity series, please know that my generous benefactor, Spiral of Destiny, has drawn me more pieces of art for that story. Follow the link on my profile (after removing the spaces) and you can see all the wonderful art they have drawn for my stories.

Also on my profile you will find a link to a great map of the elemental nations that I found, drawn by an artist called ShadowRebirth, which was a huge help in writing this chapter.

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Three Months Ago~

Naruto's adrenaline was pumping. He had the scroll like Mizuki told him, he'd even defeated the Hokage to get it; all he needed to do now was learn one of the techniques in the Scroll and he would be promoted to Genin, no matter what Iruka-sensei said. He had settled in the allotted clearing, ready to open it and get learning, when he heard twigs snapping from behind.

Shit! Mizuki-sensei told him if he got caught before completing the test, he would flunk again and he would never get to graduate.

"Mizuki-sensei! I've still got hours left!" Naruto exclaimed, caught between relieved and concerned, seeing his trusted teacher enter the clearing.

"I'm afraid not, Naruto. There's been a change of plans…" Mizuki grimaced.

The silver-haired man had been waiting in his apartment for the alarm to be sounded so he could go and 'search' for his wayward pupil. As scheduled, Iruka had knocked on his door in a panic and demanded he help look for Naruto.

It had all been going to plan, with the Hokage sending everyone out in the wrong direction, with Iruka calling on him; only, Iruka wasn't looking scared or even angry, he was looking at Mizuki with confusion.

That wasn't part of the plan. Confusion was too close to suspicion, to knowing…

And then those eyes, that had dared forget what that fox did to their parents, looked into his own and Mizuki knew Iruka had seen something he didn't like.

Mizuki had pulled the kunai he kept by his door and plunged it straight into Iruka's side before Iruka could voice the question on the tip of his tongue. The fool might have forgotten his hatred for the beast but they were still friends, so he had made sure it was a non-critical strike. As a bonus, discovery of a wounded man would slow down those who found Iruka more than a corpse would.

But now his plan had been ruined, there was no time to set up an alibi with the search party for a couple of hours. He had planned to kill the brat and then come back to Konoha after dropping off the scroll to serve as a spy, but his bridges here had been burned now so it was time to head out. There was, however, a prize he could bring his patron in lieu of his talents as a spy.

On the bright side, he had been wanting to spill the secret of the abomination's creation for years and finally there was nothing stopping him.

"There's no way…" Naruto whispered.

"Yes, brat. You're the Kyubi incarnate and you just stole the Forbidden Scroll from Konoha. The Hokage allowed you to live in case you became useful one day but now you're a traitor. They'll simply kill you on sight! If you're lucky." Mizuki smiled widely.

"But you told me to and…" Naruto was crying now. "I'll tell them you…"

"I what? I wasn't the one that destroyed half the village twelve years ago, I wasn't the one that killed so many shinobi and civilians! I didn't steal the scroll. You did that all on your own." Mizuki was enjoying this so much he didn't want it to end. Alas. "But that's okay. Even a traitor like you has a chance. You don't have to die tonight."

"Really?"

"But not here. You have no home in Konoha anymore. The Hokage wants you dead, so does Iruka. But if you come with me, you'll survive. My master will take you in, train you to be stronger than you could ever have become in Konoha." Not likely.

"Iruka hates me?" Naruto could not process this all. He thought he would be graduating tonight and becoming a respected Genin, a step closer to becoming Hokage, but now Iruka and Jiji hated him and he had to leave Konoha forever otherwise he'd be killed.

"Of course he does. You betrayed him. But it's okay, you don't have to die."

"Iruka-sensei would never kill me!" Naruto shouted, suddenly filled with surety.

"Do you really believe that? Do you want to know who killed Iruka's parents twelve years ago? Who left him an orphan? Scarred?"Mizuki stalked closer to him, "That's right! It was you, the Kyubi no Kitsune! He's always hated you, he just pretended not to so you would pass and leave the Academy, but you screwed that up as well. Earlier tonight, he came to my door and told me what he was going to do with you when he found you."

"What?" Naruto's watery eyes stared up at him.

"He said he wanted the pleasure of killing you himself."

It didn't take much to convince the stupid child of his guilt or of the only remaining option, to flee with Mizuki. Dead last and gullible.

"Hurry up, demon brat!" Mizuki called behind him, painfully aware that they only had a couple hours lead-time before an ANBU squad picked up their trail and came after them.

They needed to run clear across Fire, then into the Land of Rivers which would buy them valuable time while the Hokage asked permission from the ambassador from Rivers for his men to pass through. It was thanks to a number of traps he had prepared on his last trip this way, and to the demon's impressive stamina, they made it to the border of Rivers with only a few miles to spare, by his estimate.

Naruto had been flagging, struggling to continue on after days of running, by the time they reached the Land of Rivers. Mizuki had briefly been tempted to use the brat's dead body to slow down his pursuers but he was not quite at that stage yet. Orochimaru-sama would be furious that his cover had been blown so the Kyubi brat was necessary to mollify him.

Better the ANBU catch him than he arrive empty-handed to Orochimaru-sama.

Along the way, Mizuki said little to the brat following him, only peppering him with insults and reinforcing his guilt every few hours to keep him compliant. It worked, as Naruto's shame and self-loathing kept his mind from stretching to the possibility of Mizuki's lies.

Nearly a week later, struggling to put one foot in front of another, Mizuki could smell the sand in the air. They had hardly stopped to sleep in the Land of Rivers, and he had even ended up carrying his living cargo for the last two days.

He did not know how far behind them the Konoha shinobi were but the gap was surely closing. The number of men they would have sent on this retrieval mission was sure to be in the dozens so they would have been tracking him in shifts, relentlessly closing on them.

He heard a dog barking behind them and he realised how close the hunters were now. They were less than a mile behind and he did not have the energy to pull out a burst of speed to get away again. There was only one thing left to do now. He made one last dash through the line of trees that marked the border between Rivers and Wind, and stepped onto the sand.

While it would be supremely satisfying to kill the brat here and now with his own two hands, to watch the boy die in his last moments as a free man, it seemed too easy. Instead, he would let the boy die slowly.

"Run, Naruto! I'll hold them off!" Mizuki dropped the brat into the sand and turned back to face the forest.

"What?! But…" Naruto had no idea where they were or how to survive in the desert alone.

"They will interrogate you if they catch you. The Hokage will have to order your execution. You have to run, Naruto!"

Naruto heeded his cruel mentor and ran away from the greenery and into the barren wasteland. He travelled to the top of a high sand dune and perched there, low to the ground and waited. Maybe Mizuki-teme would be able to fight them off and escape, or maybe he would tell them Naruto was innocent after all and he could return home.

Regardless, if they came after him here in the desert, Naruto would have no chance of escaping them. From this distance, Naruto couldn't see clearly, but it looked like something hit Mizuki in the shoulder and sent him spinning to the ground. Moments later, a crowd of masked shinobi flew out of the tree line and surrounded their prey.

A few of them were watching the surroundings but most were keeping their weapons trained on Mizuki. They stepped forward and restrained him, taking the Forbidden Scroll and safely securing it to one of their backs. They now looked like they were asking him something but Naruto didn't hear what.

He did here Mizuki's answer, however;"He's dead! I killed the Kyubi brat once and for all! Good luck finding the body, I buried it in the Land of Rivers in an unmarked grave!" Each statement was screamed at the top of his lungs.

Naruto looked down at the scene, as the ANBU knocked Mizuki out, and realised this might save his life. But the ANBU still sent a couple of their men to search the surrounding area. Panicking, Naruto used his rued and celebrated unpredictable nature to come up with an improvised plan. Running would mean death, but if he took an idea from his teacher, he might survive. He buried himself.

The constant wind, for which the county had been named, had covered Naruto's tracks up the side of the dune and it would now mask where he had dug down into the sand and covered himself.

The ANBU commander assessed the situation, "We're heading back."

"Sir, what about Uzumaki?" His lieutenant asked.

"The boy's tracks disappeared days ago. Mizuki has no reason to lie now. If the boy were alive, he would be with Mizuki or we would have encountered him along the way."

"Permission to search the surrounding area for any signs of his survival, captain?"

"Granted. Search radius of one mile, be done in an hour. The Inuzuka's nose will be no use in this wind so confine your search to visual inspection."

The assigned ANBU spread out to comb through the search area and Naruto stayed buried. He stayed under his protective coating as they patrolled and visually searched. He waited as they concluded he was indeed dead. He stayed under cover until hours after they had cleared out of the country and were well on their way to delivering Mizuki back to Konoha.

He crawled out of the sand as the sun had begun to fall towards the horizon, feeling tired and thirsty and already hating the sensation of sand against his skin.

He was safe for the moment, but he couldn't risk going back into the forest where the ANBU might be waiting for him so his only choice was the desert. He knew, from what little he remembered of his geography lessons, that Wind was the largest country on the continent and was all desert. He would have to hope he encountered someone or chanced upon a city or maybe an oasis, or else he was a dead boy.

"Kami, it's hot." He muttered, setting off into the wastelands.

And the worst was yet to come.

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The Present Day~

Naruto was splitting his time between lamenting the horrors that had transpired three months ago as well as all the hells that had followed between then and now, and wishing he had a mouth so he could scream profanity at the weird guy that was keeping him prisoner inside of a sand-filled gourd (for the second time that week!)

He had spent, as best he could tell, most of the day inside of the sand container following his meeting with the Kazekage. He was able to catch glimpses and sounds from the outside world but little of which he could actually make sense of. It seemed like Gaara had spent hours sitting in play park at one point, which couldn't be right.

He wasn't that crazy.

…right?

"Gaara, I'm sure Menma is getting hungry." Kankuro tried again to gently persuade his little brother to let their new team member out of his (protective) confinement.

Gaara glared right through him, not bothering to reply beyond a slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Your little brother won't be happy if you don't let him eat, Gaara. Father agreed to let him join our squad so he won't be in any danger. With all three of us here, Menma will be safe."

"No." Gaara was petulant and Kankuro couldn't risk a 'tantrum.'

"But if you don't feed him he might get ill. You know how your stomach hurts when you forget to eat for a few days? Menma's stomach will start hurting soon. If he's doesn't get to eat or drink, he could even die from dehydration or starvation. You don't want that, do you?"

Gaara stared, his expression unchanging. He did not appreciate being patronised. He was not an idiot, no matter what they thought.

"Any luck?" Temari asked as she walked in, still carrying a wooden spoon between her fingers. Neither of the elder Sand Siblings were adept at cooking but they made do.

"Well?" Kankuro redirected the question to their younger brother.

Neither Kankuro nor Temari held any love for Gaara's new pet, and would sooner see the boy die than continue to influence or further their little brother's derangement, but they needed to keep the idiot alive or else Gaara would flip out even worse than usual and their fellow Suna shinobi would be the ones to suffer and die. And the first step to keeping the boy alive was to let him get some food and water, assuming he needed such things considering he appeared to be made of sand.

Gaara was still mulling it over, since his expression had not evened out or gotten any fiercer, but after a couple minutes his brows rose back to their calm placement and the cork flew out of the gourd.

"If he is hurt you will both die." Gaara said, dumping his sand on the living room floor. If anyone else did that it might have been inconvenient but Gaara was good at nothing if not clearing up sand. And killing people.

Temari and Kankuro blithely agreed to the ultimatum. It was a rarity that they went a single day without receiving a death threat from him. At this stage, the frequency of the threats had to be weighed against them never being fulfilled as they both tried to work out if Gaara really hated them (more than he hated everything else). So far they seemed to be coming out ahead.

From the mound of sand, Naruto rose out in the same impressive manner he had previously and immediately turned on his captor with a vein throbbing on his temple. He growled and took a menacing step forwards, his fists clenched, but restrained himself when the sight of his quarry reminded him that a head-on approach might not be the best strategy in this one situation. The probability that he would be stuffed back into that cramped container was too high to risk trying to punch the infuriating boy across his pale face.

"Dinner will be in fifteen minutes." Temari said once she was sure there would be no violence. "Clear up the sand, Gaara."

Gaara didn't spare her any attention, drawing every single grain of sand into their container without moving a muscle or taking his eyes off of his little brother.

"Are you always going to be staring at me, or what?" Naruto asked brashly.

Gaara's answer was more staring.

Naruto groaned.

Kankuro snorted but ducked out of the room when Gaara glared at him again.

Naruto shook out his borrowed clothes but noticed no sand had been caught in the folds. Even if black wasn't his favourite colour (and it seemed like a bad colour to wear in the harsh desert sun to begin with) and he wasn't big on the hood with the cat ears, Naruto had to admit Kankuro's spare uniform was surprisingly comfortable to sit around in.

"Hey, Kankuro, why do your clothes come with cat ears?" Naruto asked.

"They're not cat ears!" Kankuro shouted from the other room.

Naruto smirked but refrained from mocking the typically ill-tempered older boy further. He was getting the impression that Temari and Kankuro didn't like him all that much. And Naruto had learned, after years of living in Konoha, when someone didn't like him. Unlike Mizuki, the pair of older Genin weren't hiding their contempt, at least.

"I don't want to go back in there again, 'ttebayo." Naruto said, looking Gaara directly in the (crazy) eye.

Gaara stared back and his nose wrinkled at the challenge. Naruto watched the redhead's face distort into an expression that might have been termed as 'stern' and continued to scowl. Kankuro carried in a bowl of rice and noticed both redheads (natural and faux) had almost identical expressions. It was eerie.

Gaara sat down and started spooning rice into his bowl before the rest of the table had even been set or his siblings had a chance to sit down. Naruto would have reprimanded him for his poor table manners but he was too busy doing the same thing. Neither boy was used to regular family meals and neither had been taught proper table manners, though not for lack of trying on their teachers' parts.

Temari didn't bat an eye when she entered with the grilled vegetables and saw the boys already tucking in. Kankuro had the decency to still act offended at the bad behaviour but would save whatever slack Gaara would give him for a more important issue. No sense in using up the sparse good will Gaara had for them on etiquette lessons he'd forget in a day.

This Menma boy had no excuse, or at least no demon to act as an excuse. That said, with the way Gaara had been acting, and the way he was still sitting closer to the new boy than he ever had to anybody else, Kankuro decided whatever table manners immunity Gaara enjoyed would have to extend to his pet/adopted brother.

Naruto had eaten nothing in days but he wasn't nearly as hungry as he thought he'd be. He had not been doing much of anything in those days, granted, but nonetheless he felt like he'd only skipped a couple meals. Maybe it was part of his 'sand-thing'?

Still, he was a glutton so he devoured the overcooked rice and the vegetables with gusto. There was a little… something of meat but he did not venture to guess what sort it was. It was okay but he would have killed for some of that barbecue Iruka-sensei sometimes got with him.

Or ramen…

Ramen…!

If there wasn't a ramen stand in this village (a dim sign for the village, certainly), Naruto would have to learn to make it himself, or stock up on instant noodles until they took a mission to a real village.

Contrary to the innumerable times Naruto had imagined family dinners as he had been growing up, this dinner was less warm or jovial and more cold and harsh. Everyone just stared at their plates or glared at him, including Gaara who was supposed to be the one that wanted him here! The most he got in the way of conversation:

"What time did Baki-sensei say?" Kankuro said only after swallowing his mouthful.

"Noon." Temari replied without glancing up from her rice.

Clearly they weren't a close family. Or perhaps it was because this wasn't a very friendly village?

Naruto was a keen student of family interactions back in Konoha, having spent hours observing families in parks or in restaurants or outside the Academy and once or twice through windows, and they were almost always smiling and chatting and patting each other on the head or the back. If Naruto reached to pat someone on the back at this table, he was one-hundred percent sure he would lose the offending hand.

If it as Gaara, he would be lucky to stop at the hand.

Still, as he continued eating the bad food and looking around the room, his restless mind could not stand the silence much longer and a scant five minutes into the meal he broke the silence.

"So, uh, you've been on missions before, I guess…?" Naruto started lamely.

"We're shinobi, of course we go on missions." Temari shot back, wondering if the boy was touched in the head.

"Right, of course. So, have you been on many?" Naruto asked.

"More than you, clearly." Kankuro said, not deigning to look at him now.

"Right, right." Naruto sighed. "How long have you been doing them? Missions, I mean. When did you graduate?"

"Two years ago." Kankuro shared.

"Two years? So did you have to wait until Gaara finished to have a third member on your team?"

"No, he was waiting for us to graduate the training program so he could go on tougher missions." Temari said.

Naruto looked over at Gaara again, who did not seem to register he was being talked about, or maybe he was just determined to ignore it. Still, it was hard to imagine that more than two years ago Gaara had been taking missions when Naruto had been… Two years ago was about the time he had finally hit the target with his kunai for the first time. He still couldn't reliably hit the bulls-eye every time.

"What sort of missions do you guys take?"

"What sort?" Kankuro asked. This kid was beyond strange. It was hard to believe he was really even a shinobi. Maybe he was just a civilian with a bloodline?

"You know, do you track people or do you take stuff from one place to another place, or do you carry messages or fight people in awesome battles…?"

"Awesome battles…" Temari was thinking along the same lines as her brother.

"We do whatever needs to be done." Kankuro answered unhelpfully.

"But you're still Genin, right, so you don't do any of the really hard stuff, right?" Naruto had gotten it into his head over the course of this conversation that his new team members had been taking missions for at least two years now and were much further ahead in both skills and experience, so any missions he would go on with them would be much more advanced than beginners ones.

"Well, Genin typically start off on D-rank missions around the village. Odd jobs, construction work, anything really." Kankuro said, sensing Naruto's anxiety. "But our team is special so we split out time between B-ranks and A-ranks, mostly."

Temari noticed this turn in the conversation and joined in with a suppressed smirk, "Yeah, nothing too dangerous. Haven't killed more than a dozen on a mission in over two months, I think."

"Ten weeks, I would say." Kankuro smiled.

Naruto went pale with the casual mention of killing. He was pretty sure he had killed, but definitely not like that, not with a smile.

The conversation lapsed after that and the older pair kept the small smirks on their faces as they finished off their dinners.

After everyone had finished eating and Gaara was looking impatient to leave the table, or impatient for Naruto to leave as Gaara would have happily walked off without a word of thanks or offer of help without his newborn brother to keep watch on, so Naruto stood also.

"Can I help with the dishes?" He offered, wanting to get on their good sides in any menial way he could.

"No." Kankuro said, carrying the leftovers to the fridge to have for lunch tomorrow.

They seemed to want to be left in peace, or maybe they wanted him to take Gaara away from them, either way Naruto followed Gaara out of the dining room.

It was getting late and it had been one of, though probably not, the strangest days of his life and he was tired. He wanted to go to sleep, but since his chances of getting away from his creepy, red-haired stalker seemed limited at best, he asked where Gaara's room was. The look of confusion Gaara displayed was worrying, as always.

Naruto followed his 'older brother' through the spacious apartment and down a long hallway. The door at the end looked suspiciously pristine compared to the dented and scratched doorframe around it, as if it had been replaced recently. Inside was a bedroom, largely devoid of personal touches or signs it had been used. The bed looked like it had never been slept on.

"So, are we gonna share the bed tonight or should I just take the floor, unless you got somewhere else I can stay?"

Gaara looked even more perplexed by the question.

"Share the bed?" Gaara asked slowly, as if speaking a foreign language.

"I'm tired. You look like you could use some sleep too. I don't mind sleeping on the floor tonight." It was clear Gaara wouldn't be leaving him on his own, either way.

"You don't need to sleep." Gaara told him.

"What?" Naruto asked, "Of course I need to sleep. Everyone sleeps. It's late." He was whining but he had had a really long day.

"Weaklings sleep." Gaara told him.

"I do too and I'm no weakling." Naruto declared, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Mother will come for you in your sleep."

"What?!" Naruto screamed. He was under the impression the Sand Siblings were orphaned so this 'Mother' could only be a…

Ghost!

Naruto looked about, as if the ghost was going to float through a wall at any moment.

Gaara felt this was a more appropriate reaction to have about sleep but still, after a few minutes the anxiety faded and otouto wobbled over to the bed and pulled back the sheets.

Fine. If he was going to make a fuss, otouto could waste a few hours lying on the bed, unconscious. If Mother started devouring him in his sleep, he would be there to stop it.

Gaara stood back and watched him lie motionless. It took a little longer for Naruto to slip into the land of dreams, knowing that the insane redhead was stood there watching him with those crazy eyes.

Wait, he was a redhead too now! Damn it!

Still, tired as he was from the day's events, he did finally pass out for his wonderful night's sleep.

For all of three hours.

Gaara had watched all of that time, contemplating the recurring question of what he was to do with his ignorant, defenceless and strange little brother. After three hours had gone by, he decided he would wake him up again. It seemed like more than enough and he didn't want his precious otouto picking up bad habits from his idiot teammates. They insisted on sleeping twice that long and still acting tired when they awoke on missions. Otouto would not be lazy like them.

The object of this determination was less pleased to learn of Gaara's intentions after he was nudged awake. Naruto's eyes creaked open to see the room was dark and thought for just a moment that he had slept all night and all day, as he had once done before. It would explain why the sky was dark and why he felt so tired. Then it struck him that he had hardly had any sleep at all.

"What? What do you want?" Naruto mumbled, trying to climb back into the sheets.

Gaara tilted his head. "It is time to get up. You have slept."

Naruto turned to glare at his tormentor and the worst part of the sight that met him was the honest confusion in those black-rimmed eyes. He muttered a few curse words under his breath and rolled over to sit up.

Looking at the clock, his sore eyes shot wide. "It's only been a couple hours!"

"Three hours and seven minutes." Gaara clarified, deciding to let his little brother's swear words go for the moment.

Naruto groaned and collapsed back into the bed. "Just go to sleep or something and wait until tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow. Midnight has passed." Gaara told him, moving forwards again and collecting the thin sheet from Naruto, throwing them onto the floor.

Naruto's eyes teared up and he rolled over to scream into his pillow, before Gaara pulled that too away from him. Naruto hung his head as he sat up and swivelled to set his feet back on the floor. He didn't think he had ever been this tired in his life.

"What do you want?" Naruto asked, all grouch.

"Want?" Gaara was again visibly confused.

"Yeah, why'd you wake me up in the middle of the night?" Jerk.

"Your soul will be devoured if you sleep for too long." Gaara warned. Otouto was just lucky he wasn't possessed whenever he went to sleep. Still, mother had warned Gaara often that beyond possession there was the danger of his soul being eaten, not just his mind.

Naruto stared long and hard at his captor. This guy wasn't just eccentric, he was totally crazy. He already knew this, but each passing interaction brought with it the renewed certainty of a deeper insanity. Why couldn't he have been forcibly adopted by a regular person to be their brother?

Naruto stretched out and tried to work some blood into his limbs. "So what do you normally do this late at night?"

Gaara thought for a few seconds, "I watch the stars."

Naruto had spent time cloud gazing before in Konoha, but unlike then, he couldn't see any shapes in the stars. With this limitation, stargazing grew boring quickly for Naruto's easily distracted mind, plus he nearly fell of the roof after falling back asleep. Twice.

Gaara watched his little brother fall asleep and roll towards the edge of the roof again. He had woken last time but this time he just rolled straight off the roof so Gaara sent his sand to catch him. Naruto woke when he was dumped back on the roof and went straight back to watching the boring night sky.

This sleep deprivation torture was only made worse by having nothing to concentrate on, staying right on the precipice of unconsciousness. Desperation led to inspiration, however, and Naruto jumped to his feet.

"Let's have a race, Gaara!" He said this with his normal exuberance, irreverent of the late hour and the fact that his loud voice could wake the dead. Luckily the neighbours had lived next to the Demon of the Sand for long enough to ignore any shouts or screams during the nights.

Gaara looked at him evenly. His little brother was confusing, even compared to the normal idiocy he had to deal with on a daily basis. The newborn was energetic but insisted on sleeping like a normal human, and Gaara had not threatened to kill him, that he could recall, and yet otouto seemed to hate him. At least his little brother did not fear him like everybody else.

Even his teammates would not stand next to him or sit with him on the roof.

Gaara sighed and got to his feet. If otouto wanted to run around Sunagakure then they would go for a run, even though he did not understand the purpose. The air was cool and the village was deserted, so it was the best time if there was such a time to go for a run.

"Ready. Set." Naruto announced, getting into a starting position while Gaara simply stood up, "Go!" He called, sprinting off the roof at his top speed.

Gaara jumped off after him but grew concerned when he watched otouto's back move further and further away from him. He began pushing off the roofs with more force to try and keep up but it became clear that at their fastest, his little faster was still faster than he was.

Naruto risked a look backwards and saw Gaara flagging half a dozen rooftops back. Perfect. He forced his burning legs to give him one last burst of speed to increase the distance again so he was out of sight of his obsessive pursuer. When he was hidden, he dropped down into the alley behind some kind of shop.

He would have to face the assuredly terrible music later, but until then he settled into a darkened, vacant doorway to go to sleep. It was uncomfortable and cold but he was too tired to care.

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Four Hours Later~

Naruto had never been woken up by pure bloodlust before but he would say, on balance, it was one of the worst ways he had ever been roused. The sun was just rising over the village, and under that beautiful clear morning sky stood Gaara, walking towards him. Naruto was covered in a cold sweat as he watched his doom approach.

On second thought, he might have overplayed his hand here and worn out whatever warped affection the other redhead had for him.

Gaara had spent four hours frantically searching for his missing little brother, convinced he had run away from him or been killed by the Kazekage's men or fell off a roof. When he found him sleeping, Gaara knew that the 'race' had all been so he could go off and sleep somewhere.

The familiar hatred was rising and his sand followed suit. Naruto watched this threat coming towards him and dived out of the way when the sand surged at him. He rolled and stumbled as he got back on his feet and jumped onto the roof to avoid the next strike.

This game of cat and mouse lasted less than a minute as Gaara was well and truly pissed, and was also using his sand to come after him. All it took was one tendril to close around Naruto's ankle and he was soon being whisked away into his home away from home (away from home), the gourd.

He screamed as he was sucked in, catching the attention of a number of early risers already walking the streets, but no one thought for a second of trying to help the boy against the demon. He was beyond saving now.

An unforeseen benefit of this rough treatment was that Naruto was finally able to get some relatively undisturbed sleep inside the gourd. The only interruption he suffered from was the jostling he received when Gaara called out his sand to scare an uppity civilian off.

Naruto had made a mental note to use his time in the gourd from now on to catch up on the sleep Gaara would never peaceably give him on the outside.

Naruto was brought back to the world, literally and mentally, when Gaara dumped him back out of the gourd at noon for team practice. Baki had evidently used some of his (new and much appreciated) leverage to compel Gaara to attend team training and let Menma out for a while.

The training session started with a sparring match between Temari and Kankuro while Gaara sat back and watched. It was an impressive sight, Naruto had to admit, especially with how long they fought each other, but when that match ended and Baki took them aside to give them criticism, Naruto was starting to feel a bit left out. The feeling sunk in when he tried to listen in and Baki shooed him away. Then came team drills, which Gaara actually joined in for after Baki reiterated the Kazekage's threat towards his little brother.

"What should I do, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Go over there and practice your basics and don't bother us." Baki told him.

Naruto looked at his 'teammates' but none of them were stepping forward to include him. In fact, the older pair looked vindicated that they weren't being forced to include their brother's project.

Naruto wandered away from them, but stayed well within Gaara's eye line, and tried not to look too disappointed. He went through his poorly remembered attempts at kata and wished he could practice his weapons accuracy but he didn't have any kunai or shuriken of his own yet. After the taijutsu forms, he started on practicing his basic ninjutsu techniques. He didn't bother with his Clone technique since it was a lost cause and frankly it had led to this absurd situation in a protracted way, but he was pretty happy with his transformation.

It had always been a talent of his, to change his appearance. His substitution technique was okay too, although it was never going to be his signature technique. He tried working on that for a while but without something to substitute away from, or even things to substitute with, he didn't last long. He briefly entertained the idea of trying to substitute with Gaara or one of the other Genin but decided their approval of him would never come if he started messing with them.

Well, maybe if he got them, real good…

He would revisit that idea later if they didn't warm up to him.

After an hour of the training had passed, and Baki was drilling the three native Suna-nin on strategy, Naruto had enough and tried to join the practice properly again. He listened in again to Team Baki's tactics and formations and finally, when it became clear that all of those co-ordinations involved only three Genin at a time, he asked, "What position am I, sensei?"

"You don't have a position. You're Gaara's nin-pet, or his cargo." Baki said mercilessly, "You're not a real shinobi."

Temari and Kankuro snickered at the harsh words, and Gaara did not appear to care one way or another about the cruel attack on Naruto's abilities or utility. Gaara seemed to care nothing of Naruto's feelings, only his physical safety.

The dyed redhead slumped away to mope and left the 'real ninja' to continue their training. It helped a little that Gaara looked so upset to be stuck there. But just a little. The looks of terror on Temari and Kankuro's faces whenever Gaara did anything helped more.

Naruto sat down against the perimeter wall and thought for a moment on how he could be more useful. Back in Konoha, he had been, in his mind, on track to become the next Hokage in a couple years so surely he could at least join this team without dragging them down.

Except… the only thing he had going for him these days were his weird sand powers and his limitless chakra. The chakra had never helped him much before, so he was left with trying to work out how to use his sand abilities properly. Plus if he could control sand well enough, maybe he could even stop Gaara from stuffing him in that damn gourd every ten minutes.

He could crumble rocks into sand with a touch, which was useless in the desert, and he could turn into sand if Gaara crushed him, which was also pretty useless and more than a little irritating. Admittedly, less irritating than if Gaara actually killed him with his crush-happy ways, but still…

Naruto reached out in front of him and tried to command the sand on the ground to move a little, just enough so he knew he wasn't useless, but as always he was left disappointed by his lack of innate ability. He had spent months in his second year at the Academy trying to discover his hidden, super-powerful bloodline ability, only to reaffirm that he did not, in fact, possess a bloodline ability.

And here again he was proving his lack of ability. He was sure he could control sand, it seemed obvious since he was made out of sand and all, but maybe he would have to keep trying.

He picked up a rock close by and drained all of the stability from it, cracking it and crumbling it into more sand. That was the best description he had been able to think up. It definitely felt like he was draining something from the rock but he had no idea what.

Next he spent his time trying to turn into sand of his own volition, without the help of Gaara's crushing him to death. Like his attempts to control the sand around him, this ability seemed impossible to utilise on his own. He poked at his leg, willing it to disintegrate but in the end he was just poking his own leg. He tried hitting his leg but that achieved nothing but a numb leg.

He looked up and found everyone else staring at him, making him blush. Gaara looked mad at him hurting himself so he called out, "Sorry," and went back to trying to control the sand in peace.

He felt like an errant child at that moment as he heard the whispers of Baki-sensei's complicated plans through the wind between them, sitting on the ground and playing in the sand ineffectually.

After two hours of "training", in which Naruto was ignored and Gaara did little in the way of actually training his abilities, the Suna Jinchūriki stormed up to him and dragged him away from the practice ground. Naruto noticed that Baki and his other two students stayed behind, presumably to continue the training session without Gaara.

"So, what are we doing now?" Naruto asked, hoping for some lunch.

Gaara didn't reply, continuing to drag Naruto by the hand through the village. This gained more attention than Naruto thought appropriate, with a few of Suna's denizens actually gasping. Granted, one or two of them had seen or heard about Gaara killing him earlier that day, but that woman's screaming was still excessive.

Gaara thought nothing of it.

Naruto was dragged, compliantly, to a play park that he might remember from his time in the gourd, and Gaara settled on a swing, letting his disobedient little brother wander around.

The park was deserted and looked relatively untouched, judging by the rusted swings and the weeds growing about the place.

Naruto took the swing next to his sometimes-jailor, "Do you come here often?" It was obvious from abandoned park that Gaara was a regular visitor. Anywhere Gaara was likely to frequent tended to be devoid of life; except weeds, which was a small solace to Naruto who was missing seeing green.

Had he mentioned he hated sand?

Gaara nodded to the question. He liked to come here so he assumed otouto would like it as well. Gaara liked to sit here since nobody bothered him (for long) and it was quiet. It was different, though, with another person here. The deathly silence was disturbed by the subtle creaking of the swing's chains, the sound of heavier breathing than his own, and the occasional question.

Naruto was hungry but it was still early and Temari's cooking was nothing worth rushing to, so he quelled it as he had become used to doing, and went to play about on the park equipment. It was not very dignified to be seen playing on children's things like he was but since it was only Gaara here, and Gaara was crazy, he decided the distraction was worth it.

As he whooped on his way down the slide, he noticed Gaara staring at him like he was the crazy one. After five or six more goes down the slide, he settled back on the swing next to Gaara and looked over at him. Even though engaging the disturbing boy was probably a mistake, Naruto asked, "Hey, what can you do? Other than the sand thing."

Gaara blinked and looked over to him. "Anything I want."

"No, I mean, like, what ninjutsu do you know?"

Gaara did not know how many he actually knew and how many his sand simply did for him. "Many."

"Cool!" Naruto suddenly had stars in his eyes. "Can you teach me some? Baka-sensei is probably just going to ignore me but you're strong so maybe you can teach me some stuff."

"You cannot use my techniques." Gaara knew his little brother had been born of the sand and could turn into sand but he did not carry a demon within him so he couldn't use the techniques. And he also did not possess the Kazekage's familial Jiton bloodline which might play some role in his abilities. He wasn't sure of the specifics.

"Aw, come on!" Naruto whined, sinking to his knees in front of Gaara and clasping his hands together. Pathetic it might be, but he really wanted to get stronger. Plus, if he could do what Gaara did, he might be able to get away from the psycho. "Just show me a couple of the easy ones. I'll figure the rest out."

Gaara looked down at his little brother passively. "I cannot teach you my techniques. I can show you how to do other things." He would have to teach his baby brother how to defend himself if he kept insisting on leaving the gourd all the time otherwise one of the Kazekage's men or a shinobi on a mission or a wild scorpion might hurt him.

"What are you able to do?" Gaara asked back.

"Um, I can run really fast…?" Naruto replied, trying to smile. "I'm okay at taijutsu, and I can do really good Henshin, and I can substitute."

Gaara waited for a few beats, expecting his little brother to continue but when nothing else was said he sighed. He was a newborn so it was to be expected that he would be defenceless. After determining that he knew nothing, Gaara asked him how good his wall- and water-walking were.

"Wall-walking?"

Gaara stared at him.

Naruto stared back. He blinked first and gritted his teeth, ashamed of losing the staring contest.

What followed was an excruciatingly slow-paced lesson to bring his skills up to the most rudimentary level. Naruto told himself that it was the fault of his 'teacher' for being so incommunicative during the process and telling him little more than, "You're doing it wrong."

After hours of running up the Suna perimeter wall and slipping off of it with Gaara staring impassively at his failures, Naruto had barely gained more than a couple feet and was starting to fade. His hunger was hitting him hard and he hadn't eaten since last night, even if he didn't need to eat as much, spending so long as inanimate sand.

Gaara didn't seem to care either way but it was evening and he could do with stepping inside as the temperature was dipping fast. It was going to be a cold night.

Kankuro and Temari were both surprised to find themselves dining with Gaara twice in as many days, rarely if ever eating dinner with him more than once a month. Clearly Menma was having an effect on him already. Neither wanted to comment on whether this initial change was for the better or the worse, seeing as how they now had to eat dinner with their unrepentant homicidal little brother regularly.

Despite their apprehension, Kankuro set out two more places at the tables and put on extra rice.

"On the bright side, at least he's eating more healthily." Temari whispered as she sliced up the daikon radish.

"Never knew you were such an optimist." Kankuro said.

Temari snorted and finished up with the radish and pulled out the salted beef.

When they were all sat down and the same awkwardness permeated the air as last night, Naruto asked, "Where do you eat usually, Gaara? Doesn't seem like you eat out a lot."

"I eat alone."

"Yeah, and it's normally junk food." Kankuro muttered a decibel louder than he intended.

Gaara glared at him briefly before returning to his food.

"What do you guys like doing, then, when you aren't, you know, training and stuff?"

"We're shinobi. We don't have hobbies." Kankuro said.

"You don't do anything for fun?" Even Jiji had his smut and his walks around the village, and he was the Hokage.

"I enjoy working on my puppets." Kankuro admitted, if begrudgingly.

Naruto thought but couldn't imagine the older boy playing with dolls. "You play with puppets?"

"I don't play with them!" Kankuro shouted, turning on his sister when she laughed. "I don't!"

"So you just make them?"

"Puppetry is a unique shinobi skill of Suna, Menma. Chakra strings control the puppet. It's a very powerful skill." Temari said, soothing her brother's fragile ego.

"It is weak." Gaara disagreed, joining the conversation properly for the first time, albeit taciturnly.

"I bet everyone seems weak compared you, Gaara." Naruto said. "Can you show me your puppet, Kankuro?"

"We're eating." Temari told them.

"No." Kankuro said, not interested in engaging with the dead man walking more than he absolutely had to. He certainly wasn't unwrapping Karasu again this evening just to indulge the brat's curiosity.

"Aww! Stingy!" Naruto complained, spooning another heaped mound of rice into his gullet. At least there was plenty to eat, even if it was boring food. "So Kankuro likes playing with his battle puppets, but what do you like to do, Temari-chan?"

"-chan?" Temari snapped her eyes towards the impertinent brat.

"I don't play with them!" Kankuro shouted.

Naruto blushed and ducked his head. Temari might have acted like boy but she was still a girl.

Temari scowled when Kankuro turned the tables on her and smiled. She grabbed the knife she'd brought out with the beef, readying herself to threaten the brat, make him retract the insult, but then she remembered why they hadn't killed the boy already and risked a look at Gaara. Clearly he had noticed her intentions and was ready to kill her should she act on them. She released her grip and set the knife back on the table slowly.

Naruto didn't appear to have noticed.

"What did you do with your time, when you should have been training, before you came here?" Kankuro asked.

Naruto laughed and scratched the back of his head, "Um, well, I used to play pranks around the village. Only on people who had it coming."

"You played pranks?" Temari was as baffled as Kankuro. A shinobi who played practical jokes like a (real, civilian) child?

"Sometimes. I trained a lot too." Naruto knew he was under attack but he didn't know how to defend himself.

"Sure you did." Kankuro patronised him.

Gaara watched the exchange with mounting confusion. He did not understand how his little brother, who was like him, was able to speak so easily and laugh freely. He was only young and born of a demon, but sometimes he acted like a normal human being and not a demon-spawn. So strange.

All this talking was upsetting him, though, so he stood, bringing the conversation to a halt, and excused himself to the bathroom. He stayed an extra moment to stare down Temari, should she get it into her head again to try and hurt otouto.

He did not need to use the toilet, he just needed to sit in a darkened room for a few minutes. His head was hurting from all of the interacting he had been doing these last few days. Otouto was a trying newborn but eventually he would mature and be quieter. Until then, this darkness was soothing enough.

Back in the dining room, Naruto suddenly realised his primary captor was gone for the first time and he had a chance to run. He set his chopsticks down so he could concentrate on which would be the best way to escape the apartment, but he noticed how Gaara's blood siblings were watching his every move and realised he was not as free to leave as he first thought. Temari and Kankuro knew their lives depended on Menma being there when Gaara came back, so they weren't taking any risks.

"Hey, uh, I've been meaning to ask you guys this, but why is Gaara… you know, the way he is?"

Temari rolled the question around in her head. Kazekage-sama had given her permission, after allowing Menma to stay in the village in Gaara's custody, to disclose the truth of Gaara's nature if she deemed it necessary. It was entirely up to her discretion, meaning she could withhold it or wait until it was absolutely necessary to share it, but instead she was thinking of telling him right now.

"That's none of your business!" Kankuro snarled at him. Gaara was a monster and a psychopath but he was their teammate, their fellow Suna citizen, and he was their little brother.

"Hold on, Kankuro. He's going to have to find out sooner or later." She turned to Naruto. "Might as well tell him now."

"Tell me what?"

"Gaara contains a demon within him. It was sealed there when he was still in our mother's womb. The one-tailed tanuki, Shukaku gives Gaara its strength and control over the sand."

Naruto's mouth fell open comically and his eyes went wide. Kankuro almost wanted to laugh at the expression of utter shock except he was readying himself to jump out of his seat and restrain the boy when he regained his senses and tried to make a break for it.

"Wow, so he's a demon host! That explains so much!" Naruto exclaimed, his mouth morphing into a wide smile. So Gaara had a demon too!? They really were the same!

Temari took her turn to be shocked this time, having expected terror or hatred, not the look of excitement and relief.

Relief?

What was wrong with this kid?

"You know about Jinchūriki?" Kankuro asked, overcoming his shock before his sister.

"Uh, yeah, I think so. My old teacher mentioned them once. Don't know much about them except there are a bunch of them, one in each village."

"He wasn't very smart then. There are two in Kumo and two in Iwa. And only the major villages and Taki have them."

"Yeah, I knew that…" Naruto sweated and looked away.

Naruto toned down his excitement, seeing how wary it made his (sort of) teammates. Still, it was such an immense joy to find himself so close to a kindred spirit, even if that person was a freaky, psychotic kidnapper with no concept of personal boundaries.

"So, can all of the demon hosts do the sand stuff?" Naruto asked, secretly hoping this might be a simple answer to his current predicament. It would be nice to think that his abilities were from his first burden and not the subsequent one laid on him by the Snake.

"No, they can all do different stuff, I think. Never met one, thank the gods. Can you imagine Gaara with another Jinchūriki?" Kankuro looked at Temari and she nodded along. It was a scary thought.

"You think he would want to fight them?"

"I don't think anybody could stop him if he met one. Gaara wants to fight strong people and Jinchūriki are powerful." Temari explained.

Naruto restrained the groan from escaping his mouth. He was so close to being able to open up to someone and now he was back to narrowly avoiding violent death.

"Is training on tomorrow as well?" Naruto asked.

"Yep. Every day this week. Baki-sensei roped in Gaara as well so we can get ready to shoulder our new hindrance when missions start up again." Kankuro said.

Naruto was under no illusion about exactly who that hindrance was.

"So we're all going on our first mission together next week?"

"Yeah. Until then we've either got to get you up to speed before we leave, or you're gonna spend the entire thing sitting in Gaara's gourd."

Naruto blanched. He hadn't considered that probability. He had been too excited to finally get his chance to take a mission, even if it was a super dangerous one like Kankuro and Temari said it would be.

Gaara strolled back into the dining room and took his seat at the table, resuming his slow, methodical eating. He did not know what they had been talking about in his absence, he did not care much, but whatever it had been was now causing otouto to stare at him.

That night, Naruto had to beg to be allowed four hours sleep, on the promise that he would never run away like he had again. As last night, Gaara stood there watching him, this time with the lights on but Naruto was too tired to care. Even if Gaara was his fellow Jinchūriki, Naruto could not think of him as anything but a creep after Gaara tried telling him that "Sleeping more than four hours is lazy."

In the dead of the morning, Naruto was again woken up by the weirdo and this time he didn't try arguing. He resented but he didn't argue.

As he crawled out of bed, he grumbled and rasped out insults but Gaara did not react, he simply waited patiently. Gaara wondered how long this whole 'sleeping' phase would last. Naruto rubbed the sleep from his sore eyes.

True, it was nice to have somebody who cared about him, to be wanted for a change, but this obsession was worse than the crushing loneliness sometimes.

Times like in the middle of the night when he should be allowed to sleep in peace. He was a growing boy!

Under the starlight and distant streetlights, Naruto continued working on his wall-walking practice in between yawns. It was still going slowly.

"Hey, Gaara, how come your skin's so pale?" They lived in the desert, under the baking sun, and Gaara seemed to spend a lot of his time outside, and yet his skin was almost as monochromatic as Naruto's, and many shades lighter.

Gaara looked down at the skin on his hand and turned it over, having never really thought about his appearance. "My sand armour shields me." Gaara said, as if just discovering its UV protection himself. He let the sand from his hand fall off, revealing his unblemished and pale skin.

"Woah, that's handy. No wonder you ain't got no scars or anything. Except your tattoo, 'course." Naruto looked down at his own grey skin, totally devoid of colouration and looking quite dark at night. He missed his old tanned complexion.

Naruto tried a few more times to beat his record up the wall but after he reached twice his height, he always lost traction and slipped. When he landed in a crouch, he turned to Gaara again.

"Is that sand armour thingy because of your demon as well?"

Gaara blinked and wondered whether otouto knew about Shukaku because of his own birth or because of their idiot teammates. "Yes." He replied. Truthfully, it was mostly his own chakra that powered the sand armour but his little brother was simple and didn't need any extra complicated explanations.

"Cool." Naruto whistled. So far his demon had done nothing for him except give him his whisker marks. "Are your eye-rings and your tattoo from it too?"

Gaara's hand wandered up to trace his tattoo absently. "Yes."

"Huh." Naruto thought that was weird. Maybe he had a tattoo hidden somewhere he hadn't noticed. He hoped whatever it said was cooler than 'love'.

Gaara stared at his little brother, as he most often did. It just went to show that they were both demonic since no normal person had ever accepted his Jinchūriki-status so casually. It was… nice…

"So what is the deal with demons, anyway? Does that make you a demon too?"

"I hold a demon inside of me and use its power. I myself am a monster." The distinction was not an important one to him.

Naruto had long since begun to question if Mizuki had been lying to him, about him being the Kyubi itself and responsible for the destruction it caused. He might still be a monster, the jury was still out on that one, since Mizuki and Gaara seemed to be in agreement that Jinchūriki were monsters, but that was better than being a demon… probably.

Naruto wanted to tell Gaara about the Kyubi, that they were in the same boat, but refrained when he remembered how insane Gaara was. Gaara might kill him because being a Jinchūriki meant they weren't really brothers, or because he hated foxes, or some other reason Naruto couldn't begin to guess at. Plus Naruto didn't want to be seen as a weapon like Gaara obviously was.

After that place, Naruto would never be somebody's weapon ever again!

He tried running at the wall again but misjudged his chakra output and his foot slipped against it and his face smashed against the wall instead. He groaned and rubbed his red nose but looking around; Gaara hadn't even cracked a smile. The guy was immune to physical comedy!

"You are not very good at this." Gaara commented.

Naruto sighed and plopped down onto the floor and took a break. It was thanks entirely to Naruto's inexhaustible energy that he was able to function on so little sleep. Even if he could sleep in Gaara's gourd, he needed a full night's, uninterrupted sleep to properly recharge and that seemed to be a pipedream.

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"Menma's starting to look even more like Gaara with those bags under his eyes, don't you think?" Kankuro mentioned when the red-headed pair re-entered the apartment for breakfast.

"Don't you start saying they look alike." Temari angrily whispered.

"You staying for breakfast?" Kankuro asked Naruto.

"Sure. If you have enough." Naruto said.

"It's just leftovers." Kankuro told him, going back into the kitchen to get it. If Menma and Gaara were going to be eating with them more often, they would have to have more of Gaara's money diverted to them to pay for it. They barely made ends meet as it was.

A place was set for Gaara too but he didn't touch any of the food that was brought out. "I'm not hungry." He told his little brother when the foreigner tried loading up his plate for him.

"Go and buy some clothes today. You've been wearing my spare uniform for two days straight already." Kankuro told him.

Naruto looked down at himself and blushed. He had totally forgotten with how strange his schedule had been these past few days. "I don't have any money. Will I get a stipend until I start taking missions?"

Temari laughed derisively. "I don't know what rich country you came from, but if you want to get paid, you work. Anyway, you're not going to be getting much anyway since you're so useless."

"Kazekage-sama is going to give you a small amount out of Gaara's pay since you're his pet project. When you prove you can actually take part in missions, he'll give you your own money." Kankuro added.

Naruto looked down at the table, feeling ashamed and frustrated at their true but harsh words. He risked a look at Gaara and breathed a sigh when he remembered that Gaara was crazy and wouldn't care about something like money. Right now he was staring into space and his eye was twitching ever so slightly.

Once breakfast was over and Naruto had eaten sparingly, after being cowed by Temari's and Kankuro's frugality, he followed Gaara to the retail district of Suna. It was a sparse place, half the size of Konoha's shopping area. Still, Naruto rushed about looking for the one criterion he had for fashion: bright orange.

He noticed as he went from shop to shop, the looks of terror and hatred the shopkeepers and other shoppers sent their way when they saw Gaara. It was hard not to notice, really. Still, in every shop he entered, Naruto said there was nothing he liked and would run back out again. He was, truth be told, looking for an exact copy of his old jumpsuit, or as close to it as he might find.

Worse than his so far fruitless search, all of the shop assistants he asked were acting like orange was a colour shinobi weren't supposed to wear. As if the people of this village could understand his magnificent tastes!

Naruto rushed to the next shop that sold men's and boy's clothes but his arm was caught by Gaara who was beginning to look miffed. "I'm not ditching you, Gaara, I swear! I just want to check all of them before lunch. None of these stores have anything worth wearing. I mean, is it so hard to stock something orange!"

Gaara walked past him, still holding Naruto's elbow, and dragged him into the next shop. Naruto darted about like a fly trapped in a glass jar, looking for anything at all in his signature colour. Gaara, meanwhile, ignored his hyperactive little brother and picked out a few pieces of clothing that he came across first and walked back towards the door with them. Naruto saw him leaving and caught up, only realising after they left the shop that Gaara had effectively stolen the clothes.

"Gaara…Gaara! Hold on a second!" Naruto ran after him, looking back to see the scared shop worker cowering in the corner with no intention to recoup his stolen wares.

Gaara did not heed his complaints and continued back towards the apartment, the clothes in hand. He hadn't even taken them off the hangers.

"Gaara, are those even in my size!" Naruto said when he followed Gaara into their (?) bedroom.

"Put on your new clothes. Return that to Kankuro." He gestured to the borrowed stage costume with contempt. Naruto thought Gaara was surprisingly judgmental when it came to fashion.

Naruto threw off the increasingly ripe black cat costume, no matter what Kankuro said, and took the new clothes from Gaara. He would deal with the stealing later. "Ugh… these are so dull…"

Naruto pulled on the Suna-style clothes, first a mesh undershirt and beige trousers, and then a sandy shirt and a sash to go around his waist. "It's sand-coloured…" Naruto continued to complain.

He hated the colour, but the collar of the shirt was very soft and would breathe much more easily than Kankuro's dark uniform. Naruto sneered, wishing he had been able to buy (or steal) something orange himself. He collected the borrowed clothes in his arms and ran over to Kankuro's room, or where he thought it was. He knocked on the door and Temari stuck her face out.

"What?" She asked, testily.

"Nothing, sorry, wrong room." Naruto bowed and stepped back so the door could be slammed in his face.

He tried the other door and Kankuro answered it this time. "Thanks for letting me borrow these." He handed over the bundle of clothes.

"Thanks for washing and ironing them…" Kankuro scowled, taking the clothes Naruto had worn for two days and then balled up, throwing them in his own overflowing, black-filled laundry basket.

"Hey," Naruto started before Kankuro could slam his door in Naruto's face, "Gaara walked out of a shop earlier without paying but he doesn't want to go back and pay the guy. Do you know where he keeps his money so I could go back and pay for them?"

"You want to know where Gaara keeps his money?" Kankuro asked, turning back towards the suspicious new entity in their home.

"Well, yeah. I don't have of my own yet and you said I was Gaara's responsibility. Plus he kind of stole them before I could say anything. If I can borrow another one of your uniforms, I could take these back."

Kankuro sighed, "Keep them. Baki-sensei will reimburse the guy. Gaara doesn't carry money because he just ends up stealing anything he wants anyway. People died trying to charge him for things, so whenever he does take something, the shop owner asks Baki-sensei for money."

"And he just hands it over? What if they lie?"

"Nobody lies to Baki-sensei. Not for long anyway. Now go away." Kankuro walked back into the room, letting the door close behind him. Naruto caught a glimpse of mounds of sawdust all over the floor and what looked like limbs hanging from the ceiling.

Once again, Naruto observed that the crazy was strong with this family.

Still, at least he didn't have to worry about Gaara or him getting in trouble for the sand-user's kleptomania.

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Later that day, Naruto had wanted to take another look around town with Gaara and they'd settled in a café for lunch, despite the obvious discomfort it caused Gaara and everyone else nearby. The only people not horrified were Naruto and a visiting writer from the capital of Wind, Jōgaya, to whom he was talking. The writer did not know he was sitting perilously close to the most dangerous boy in Suna, nor was he aware that engaging Naruto in conversation was pissing that dangerous boy off.

Naruto was chattering away with the friendliest person he had met since… probably since he was Konoha. It was a stroke of luck that the man Naruto had decided to start a conversation with happened to be a Wind citizen. Naruto was already inherently under suspicion as a foreigner entering Suna's shinobi forces, so if he had spent the better part of an hour speaking to another foreigner out in the open like this, he would have had a hard time convincing anyone he wasn't a (really bad) spy.

As it was, Naruto was just so happy to talk to a nice, normal person for a change. He had been told, once upon a time, broadly what was and was not allowed to be disclosed to civilians, back in the Academy, so he tried to restrict his talk to the village in general and things like that. The writer was something called a 'journalist', but Naruto had not the first clue about the news. Shinobi villages didn't tend to encourage newspapers or reporters.

"What do you think of the people here, Menma? Have they welcomed you with open arms or are you regarded with suspicion?"

"They're nice enough, I suppose." Naruto laughed, rubbing the back of his head and hoping this 'journalist' had not noticed all of the dirty looks shot at Gaara and he since they sat down. Naruto had to go to the counter to order and then again to pick up their food since the waitress was too scared to go near Gaara. Plus it seemed 'customer service' was literally a foreign concept here.

The Suna-native redhead was sat in the shade, seething about his little brother being so friendly with a stranger. He could be an assassin. Or a weakling, either way best not acknowledged.

Otouto had insisted they stop here for ice-cream, which Gaara had not had in years (because he didn't care for it), but now it was all eaten and they were still here and his little brother was ignoring him.

This man from Jōgaya would die very soon if he didn't stop talking about unimportant things.

Naruto glanced over at Gaara since the quiet boy probably wasn't used to going to restaurants or cafes, and spotted the murderous look in his eyes. It was becoming a familiar warning signal so he made his excuses to the kindest person he'd met here and gingerly approached his adopted brother to soothe him before he killed someone/everyone.

"Hey, Gaara, sorry for ignoring you but I figured you wouldn't-" Naruto was rudely cut off by the sand that stretched out of Gaara's gourd and clamped over his head and dragged him into his prison with it.

Minetsu, the journalist, watched the apparent murder in shock and turned to see if any of the other patrons at the establishment had noticed it.

"Did you see that?" He asked the waitress that had finally returned to collect his plates.

She looked to where he gestured and put it together. "Oh, yeah, Gaara got himself a friend, I think. Apparently the boy gets crushed and stuffed into that gourd and then pops back out fine later. Showed up last week."

"Wow. Shinobi are even stranger than I heard." Minetsu whistled, looking around him for anymore inadvertent ninja hijinks that might be occurring around there.

"There's regular shinobi and then there's Gaara and whatshisname." The waitress confided.

"Menma, the other boy. Nice kid." Chatty, though; which was a wonderful quality in an interviewee.

"They don't normally let foreign shinobi join, because of the spies," She said, "But I think they made an exception to give Gaara a chew toy."

"What's the deal with the Gaara kid? Seemed pretty intense but Menma didn't really say much about him, other than that they were teammates and living together."

"Well, I don't know that much about it, but I know that he's dangerous, really dangerous, but he's the Kazekage's son and he's one of the best young ninja in Suna. I heard another rumour saying that…Menma is Gaara's brother. Who knows. Crazy stuff, either way, I suppose." She said.

"There is a bit of a resemblance with the hair and the eyes, I guess." Minetsu said, suspecting something more to the story as Menma's hair was pretty obviously dyed and his eyes, other than supporting bags under them, looking almost nothing like the other boy's.

Still, interesting stuff. Much more juicy than the resumption of the fish trade between Jōgaya and Sunagakure. Granted, whatever he wrote would have to be vetted by the Suna office in the capitol but he would make it work. It would have been nice if he had remembered to take a picture of the boys while he had the chance but they would have probably redacted it anyway.

Despite failing to increase the utility of any of his other abilities, Naruto had managed to train his magnificent ability to be trapped in a gourd for long periods of time from repetition. He could now clearly see and hear out of the container in a pleasant sort of panoramic view. He couldn't speak or move but at least he had a good view of Gaara's walks around the quiet areas of the village from his prison.

It was dull but he did get to see more of Suna in between power naps.

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Over the following week, Gaara continued to diligently train his baby brother whenever they had some free time, which was in plentiful supply with Naruto's new streamlined sleep schedule and lack of friends (outside of his crazy, self-appointed big brother). By the time their mission deadline came around, Gaara was a little less worried about his brother's survival prospects outside of Suna's protective walls.

Naruto on the other hand was supremely confident. He was sure he could beat Sasuke (and maybe Iruka-sensei) in a fight now that he could walk on walls, and hit the target with his kunai AND shuriken (although it wasn't always the centre of the target he hit), and Gaara had even taught him the Sand Clone technique!

It had taken a lot of begging and whining but the tanuki Jinchūriki had relented and agreed to try and teach Naruto the technique, if only to keep him busy. However, what Gaara lacked in teaching prowess Naruto seemed to make up for with his unlimited supply of chakra and enthusiasm to learn what he called 'real techniques.' Naruto's surprising aptitude for clone techniques that could handle his reserves had been counterbalanced by Gaara's inherent ability with sand complicating any explanation to someone without his instinctual control.

From the moment Naruto had been able to perform it successfully, he had been creating clones left and right, and had even tried to trick Gaara into storing a clone in the gourd while Naruto ran off. Gaara had 'felt' the difference and had not been impressed by the 'joke.'

Naruto had insisted that Gaara and he sit down and eat with Kankuro and Temari most nights since he arrived, despite no one wanting this new arrangement. They had entirely failed to warm up to his charms and Gaara still threatened to kill them frequently, so the (blood) sibling relationship had not improved either. Nonetheless, Naruto insisted.

He was, frankly, a little upset when they even failed to reassess his usefulness in light of his awesome new jutsu, simply remarking that, "Creating more weaklings out of sand won't help anyone."

Both the older teens had fully sated their curiosity regarding their little brother's playmate rather quickly so they had taken to ignoring him as much as possible. It was difficult when he was so desperate to engage them but they were great at ignoring things, as their non-interactions with the surly villagers proved. Them ignoring Naruto did make Gaara a little happier, though, so there was a silver lining.

Sadly, this meant that other than the one journalist from the capitol, the only person Naruto had to talk to was Gaara, and all he ever wanted to talk about was: killing, 'mother', 'proving his existence', fighting strong people, and other subjects in that vein.

Naruto was still puzzled as to why Gaara even wanted them to be brothers since they weren't friends, they had nothing in common, and they didn't really do much together despite spending all their time in close proximity.

Naruto even got the impression that he annoyed Gaara; a rare moment of self-realisation on his part.

It occurred to him, belatedly, that Gaara did not want them to be brothers, Gaara just sincerely believed they were brothers and there was nothing to be done about it.

Other than his underwhelming new abilities, Naruto had discovered a new facet of his pre-existing sand powers. He had been in Gaara's bedroom, waiting for him to get out of the shower so he could take his turn, when he had went to examine one of the natural red-head's numerous cacti. He had done this before and he almost always pricked himself on a spine accidentally. Gaara had been considering putting them on a higher shelf or something…

As he had been playing about with the biggest cactus in the room, almost a foot tall from the pot, he had noticed the small pebbles in the base and picked one out to crush into sand. He still hadn't formulated a use for this ability, other than supplying Gaara with more sand when they were away from Wind, and more importantly he hadn't come up with a cool name for it yet.

It was as he was pouring the new sand into Gaara's gourd, resting against the wall, he then began to idly wonder what would happen if he tried using it on other things instead of just rocks. Honestly, it hadn't dawned on Naruto before that moment to even try. There wasn't a lot in the room to begin with, and Gaara had told him he "wasn't allowed" to leave the bedroom, so he walked back to the cactus and pressed his hand against it, to use his ability. He sharply pulled it back and had to pull a number of needle-thin thorn from his palm before trying again more carefully.

Resting his hand gently on top of the deceptively sharp plant, he exerted the same feeling, like running his chakra along his palm and letting it leak out, which had previously fractured and shattered rocks and boulders into sand and dust. This time, he watched in amazement as the cactus began to wilt and droop. It shrivelled and dried out entirely and then began to crack and break apart like the rocks until it too was just dust in the pot.

Naruto pulled back his hand and stared in amazement.

A few minutes later, Gaara returned to his room to find three of his cacti were missing and his little brother was too energetic.

"Gaara, look at what I can do!" He shouted before destroying a fourth cactus.

Gaara stared on, less interested in this new ability and more in why otouto was destroying his plants…

Naruto soon decided, after he had been forced into the bathroom by an upset roommate, that he would keep this Gaara and him. Gaara could be relied upon not to gossip with his siblings or their sensei, and Naruto wanted to keep this as his secret weapon to pull out in a dire emergency. That way the others would be more impressed.

Gaara had no intention to tell anyone about this because he did not gossip, as Naruto thought, and because he didn't want the Kazekage making otouto into a weapon. Plus, it was not as if his little brother would be doing any fighting, anyway.

Naruto tried out his cool technique whenever he got the chance from then on. Glasses of water emptied without him taking a sip, potted plants wilted unexpectedly, and a wooden pillar had crumbled as if petrified. It was just as well they were soon to be going on a mission as Naruto's new and effortless technique might have brought ruin to the desert village if he were allowed to fool about with it unchecked for much longer.

Naruto was excited to be going to get his new mission until he and the other Genin were told to stand outside while their sensei went in to receive the briefing. Apparently this was standard practice in Suna, so that everybody down the chain of command was only told precisely as much as they needed to know. Despite this affront, Naruto was still in good spirits. Having witnessed Gaara's badassery on a regular basis, his concerns about it being his first mission had disappeared leaving only this long anticipated exuberance.

Five minutes after entering, Baki stepped out of the Kazekage's office, tucking the official mission scroll into his vest.

"Mission will be over a month long. Pack accordingly and we'll leave in two hours from the West Gate. You will be briefed then." Baki then walked away. No one could ever accuse him of coddling his Genin, Naruto thought.

Gaara, and Naruto outside of the gourd, followed Kankuro and Temari back to the apartment where they began collecting the few things they could risk carrying on such a long mission.

Naruto had nothing of his own to pack and his offers to help the others were rudely rebuffed so he stood back with Gaara. They both watched the older pair collecting dried food rations and pills along with a light load of projectiles and their individual weapons. Naruto still hadn't actually (or knowingly) seen Kankuro's puppet in action but Temari's fan had been so cool. He had begged to be taught some of what she knew but she refused him flat.

"Hey, what about water?" Naruto asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He had walked the desert once without water and it had been one of the worst experiences of his short life, and now all he had seen them pack was rations, weapons and scrolls. Who read on missions anyway?

"It's sealed away. Suna shinobi don't carry canteens full of water everywhere they go or it would weigh them down." Kankuro replied, speaking to Naruto as if he were a small and slow child.

Naruto guessed it made sense, even if he understood nothing of sealing beyond its usage in containing raging demons and making awesome explosions.

After the sparse supplies had been divided for carrying between the older pair since Gaara was apparently a special exception to physical labour and Naruto couldn't be trusted, the three natives went around the apartment making preparations for being away so long. They threw out food that wouldn't last, unplugged the fridge-freezer, locked the shutters over the windows, put dust sheets over furniture.

Naruto was surprised to see even Gaara helping, if only to water his own (surviving) cacti and dumping his (and Naruto's) collected dishes from the nights Gaara had not been able to face another dinner with his detestable teammates into the sink for Kankuro to wash with a scowl. Naruto had tried to do it before but Gaara had told him to leave it to them and again now he was being told to leave them. Kankuro glared at him, presumably because he couldn't glare at Gaara, as he quickly cleaned and dried the plates and cups. Gaara could be a slob sometimes.

When they were all ready, they left the apartment and Temari locked it down tight and pocketed the key. Naruto was a little glad that, as a newcomer to this place, he wasn't feeling as emotional about leaving on his first mission. If he had been in Konoha it might have been a little more of a big deal to leave his home for a month.

They walked to the West Gate, Naruto enjoying the chance to actually walk around. Gaara had been more lenient these past couple of days (which only meant Naruto had spent more time outside of the gourd than in it) and it had been great.

At the West Gate, Baki was standing there looking at Naruto like he had made them all late, even though they were fifteen minutes early.

"This mission is scheduled to last forty days, with opportunities to resupply on course. We are escorting a shipment of rubies from Akaihana in the south-west to Onkibu in the Land of Tea. No expected targeted attacks, mid-level expected random attacks." Baki said as by way of a greeting. Naruto missed Iruka-sensei's warm smile and unthreatening anger.

"Which port are we taking to Tea?" Temari asked.

"We will head east from Akaihana and leave from Jōgaya. We'll dock at Degarashi in Tea and go west to Onkibu." Baki answered.

"One way?" Kankuro asked.

"Yes."

Naruto looked between them, wondering if this was really just a C-rank mission. They were expecting attacks, and they were travelling all over Wind and then across the sea to another country. He had never even seen the sea!

"Any other pertinent details, sensei?" Temari requested.

"Nothing that concerns you." He answered gruffly. "Loose number four formation." He started walking out into the wasteland and the others all followed but Naruto had no idea what 'number four formation' was nor how he fit into it. As he made to follow and ask Gaara where he should be walking, he was swept into the gourd and was left to stew in there.

As Gaara followed his team, he thought he heard his little brother screaming at him briefly, from inside the gourd, but attributed it to all the other screaming voices in his head.

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Naruto had never been so bored, he thought. He had ranted and raved for the first hour of walking but no one could hear him so eventually he stopped and tried to entertain himself by watching the scenery, except the only scenery around were the endless sand dunes. Not even a cloud in the sky to watch. The only thing he could see was sand blowing in the wind all around them.

He had a series of short naps throughout the day and then as the sun started to dip, Baki called them to a stop and they set up camp before the sun fully set, putting up tents and building a fire behind a windbreaker. It was only after everything had been set and the sun had fallen below the horizon that Gaara finally let Naruto out of his prison.

Gaara watched his little brother shout at him dispassionately and when he stopped for breath, Gaara offered him some food.

Naruto looked down at the dried meat being extended towards him, breathing heavily after screaming at and threatening Gaara until he ran out of breath and curse words, and sighed. He took the food and angrily chomped on it. No matter what he said to Gaara, the words meant nothing to him. It was clear the only thing that could communicate with Gaara was action.

Naruto kept coming back to the problem that Gaara was someone who, more than possibly anyone in the history of the world, needed a punch to the face and yet Naruto wasn't strong enough to give it to him.

As he quietly munched on his paltry dinner, Naruto looked to the others but Temari, Kankuro and Baki were all silently consuming their rations and huddling by the fire. Naruto was cold but stayed near Gaara, away from the fire. He hated how much the temperature varied in this country. The only clothes that were bearable in the day were too thin for the freezing nights.

After finishing eating, the other three went straight into their tents and went to sleep.

"No campfire stories?" Naruto whined as they turned in for the night. Boring people.

"The walk is long and tiring. They want to rest." Gaara said, uncharacteristically understanding of the need for sleep. It just happened to come at the one time Naruto had ample time to get some rest in the gourd during the day.

"So where are we going, exactly?" Naruto knew little geography and Akaihana and Onkibu hadn't meant anything to him.

Gaara considered the question for a while longer and then rummaged through Temari's bag, left outside the tent, for a small map of Wind. He and Naruto moved closer to the fire and Gaara traced the route of the mission on the map. "We are here. We will continue to travel south-west to the Dansai river, south of Reto lake, where we will board a barge taking us down the river. We will leave and travel west to Akaihana."

"Akaihana, red flower?"

"It is a mining town that produces rubies. We will escort the clients, which we are not to kill, from Akaihana east, inland from the sea, crossing the Dansai river again, and then the Unkei, Chagawa, and the Hanagarashi rivers."

Naruto followed along, wondering if it was really necessary for Gaara to clarify that the clients weren't allowed to be killed.

"We will enter Jōgaya and the following morning we will board a ship that will sail out from the Bay of Bunpuku, into the Hanguri Gulf. Then around Tea from the gulf into the Nanmen Ocean and then up again into the Kanashii Ocean, departing at Degarashi port. From there we will head west to Onkibu."

Naruto stared at the map, which did not bear any borders or names as such information could be considered minutely sensitive, and marvelled at Gaara's memory for a moment.

"After the clients have been delivered with their cargo, intact, we will return to Degarashi and take a ship back around Tea to the north-west of Hanguri Gulf and make port in Danda, in the Land of Rivers. From there we will head north-west back to Sunagakure. Mission time: 40 days."

Naruto gaped. "Do you know all of the villages and towns in Suna?"

"And the other nations." Gaara said.

"How? Why?"

"It is expected that I know. I have to know who I am allowed to kill and who is strong."

"Ah, that makes sense." Naruto smiled. He was worried Gaara might have hidden depths and that those depths might be occupied by a bookworm, but equilibrium was restored with Gaara's psychopathy.

Naruto considered, sadly, whether he was on the mission just as something to keep Gaara entertained and docile during the nights while the real team members were sleeping. He was a babysitter (or a distraction, depending on who you asked).

The journeying continued like that for the next four days, with Naruto sleeping for most of the days and being let out at night to keep Gaara company. It was a blessing in one way, since he spent two thirds of his time as sand, he needed to eat very little so the supplies would last longer. Plus Gaara had not wandered off or tried to kill Baki once since they set off, which was apparently nothing short of a blessing.

He was still pissed that his first mission was as luggage, but at least he was still able to train with Gaara through the night. He had managed to learn the Sand Clone in the week leading up to the mission, but now he wanted to master it. Being his only real technique, other than his dehydration palm trick, Naruto was determined to make it his own.

He also tried working on his ability to turn into sand, with Gaara's help this time, but he had little in the way of luck regardless. It seemed to be entirely out of his control, this ability that only seemed to enable Gaara to trap him when he pleased.

One of the nights, the third, the team had built two fires with one almost a mile away. By the time Naruto was released, they had already left Gaara at one and retreated to their safe distance. Naruto looked around, trying to work out what was special, but all he could see, and it was quite far because of the full moon, was more sand and Gaara standing there and twitching every few seconds.

"What's up with them?" Naruto gestured towards the distant light.

"…"

"Did they at least leave us some rations?" Naruto looked around and found a satchel with something to eat. "So, want to work on clones tonight or can I try dissolving again? I swear I'll figure it out one day."

Gaara was quiet and his eyes were bloodshot, but over the entire night he did not try to attack Naruto once. Clearly 'Mother' was not interested in the faux-red-head's blood. The next morning at dawn, when the others gingerly approached, they had expected to find Gaara very upset at having murdered his pet in the night, instead both boys were sat by the embers of their fire, sipping tea.

Naruto had the good timing to put his cup down before Gaara dragged him into the gourd without a word of warning. The others cleared up the secondary campsite and soon were again on their way.

It was that day, after the full moon, that a band of desert-dwelling thieves had the terrible idea of trying to attack and rob Team Baki. A dozen men and women, covered from head to toe in bandages and ragged strips of cloth, wielding knives and swords, had leapt out of a hideaway in the sand and tried to ambush the Suna-nin. Two of them never made it to the ground, thanks to Gaara.

Baki's first reaction to the attack had been the jump away from the fight. The mission did not call for him to engage enemies before their rendezvous with the clients and Gaara would not discriminate between ally and foe once he got started. Kankuro and Temari followed soon after, preparing themselves to take care of any stragglers. All of them knew better than to get in Gaara's way or to try and poach his prey.

Gaara, meanwhile, was in his element at last. The red haze had taken over and he was doing what came naturally to him. This distraction proved to be problematic as his control of the sand, while as strong as ever, was now focussed on crushing the bandits surrounding him, so Naruto was able to pull himself together and crawl out of the sand that had been called forth from the gourd.

He had been woken up by Gaara's first strike and refused to sit idly by as his body was used to fight and he had no control over it. People kept calling him useless and dead weight, and lab specimen, and before that it was dead last; but he was a shinobi, damnit! He wouldn't sit idly by.

He got into his best taijutsu stance and readied himself to fight, surrounded by enemies and with a comrade at his back. This was just like he had imagined it would be, back when he was daydreaming at the academy.

"Oh no, Menma got out!" Temari said.

"So?" Kankuro asked, his fingers twitching, ready to deploy Karasu.

"So if he's killed, Gaara is going to be upset." Baki finished for her.

"Crap." Kankuro agreed. "Is there anything we can do?"

"If you want to join them, go ahead, but I'm not going anywhere near them." She finished. In fact, she was readying herself to run in the opposite direction should Menma really get killed. That was their best option for survival and Baki agreed.

Gaara had noticed the moment Naruto manifested again, and suddenly his fighting changed, his sand curling protectively around both of them. His ultimate defence wouldn't help otouto but Gaara didn't need it against these pitiful thieves.

Naruto appreciated the help since these guys were stronger than they looked. He did the best he could without any weapons, but if the sand had not been intercepting half the attacks aimed at him, he would probably be dead by now.

He spun around to give someone a roundhouse kick before letting the sand swallow the guy. The next one to make it through the barricade was faster and Naruto had to jump away to avoid a dagger slash to the face.

Suddenly, Gaara was surrounded by half a dozen of the remaining (and soon to be killed) force while Naruto found himself facing a single opponent away from Gaara's protective sand.

As Gaara slaughtered his foes, Naruto ducked under the next dagger swipe that would have slit his throat, and dived forward, tackling the full-grown man to the ground. They wrestled in the sand briefly, the blade being lost in the fracas, and Naruto ended up under the larger male, their hands around his throat.

"Brat!" He man grunted, clamping down on his windpipe.

Naruto scrambled, his body spasming and reacting instinctively to his sudden oxygen deprivation. His vision started turning black at the edges but he thought he saw Gaara still fighting.

In his panic, all Naruto could think to do was claw at the hands on his neck and futilely try to reach up past the man's longer arms.

This had happened before. He had been held down like this back there, by the others. It hadn't been their fault, they were desperate. Naruto had been more desperate, he had been so thirsty.

He had forgotten that part, the moment he had escaped, but he remembered it now. They'd held him down, like he had done to the earlier ones who returned from the other room, to take what was his, but he had grabbed them.

His hand repeated the motion from his memory, grabbing onto the arm slowly taking his life and he drained it. He had been so thirsty the last time he had used it on a person but now he was desperate, so he held on as he felt the hand on his neck stiffen, as he watched the man's eyes crease in pain, and he felt the man try to pull away, and as the body lightened and stopped moving altogether.

Naruto coughed as his first lungful of air was laced with the powdered remains of the man who had tried to kill him and who had been dehydrated and rendered into dust.

He crawled out from under the dust, bones and rags, and tried not to throw up from the shock and the resurfacing memories.

Naruto looked around to see a few piles of bloody sand Gaara had left behind, a single set of remains closer to Temari, and he could see one of the bandits retreating back across the open desert. Gaara had spotted Naruto and looked surprisingly concerned, as if he was really feeling an emotion.

Gaara approached him slowly, his sand still flowing around him protectively. Naruto sat back, not able to trust his legs to support him just yet, and Gaara saw the bruises already forming on his throat and stopped his concern.

Like a switch had been turned off, Gaara stood up straight, turned to the fleeing thief and ran after him. Naruto turned to watch him go but then looked away moments before Gaara caught up to him.

From the expressions of the rest of Team Baki, Gaara had not gone to accept the survivor's surrender. Naruto rubbed his neck, wishing his wonderfully swift healing were quick enough to ease the soreness and disappear the bruise before Gaara came back. It seemed to upset him.

Gaara walked back into the area, splattered with blood and looking markedly unhinged. Naruto sat and watched his approach but what was stranger than the blood or the expression on Gaara's face was that he did not even spare Naruto a glance after spending over a week hardly letting the newcomer leave his sight. Gaara walked right by him without looking at him, straight towards Baki, Temari and Kankuro.

"Shit, he's coming for us!" Kankuro said.

The trio got ready for a fight, hoping one of them might be able to snap Gaara out of this rage before any of them died. The mission would be over, that was for sure, since all of them would be wounded and sporting multiple breaks and fractures.

"Gaa-" Naruto tried shouting but ending up coughing. He tried again, "Gaara!" He shouted, but got no response.

Grunting, he rolled onto his knees and tried to stand up. Two stumbling attempts and he made it to his feet unsteadily, wobbling in the breeze.

Gaara was still marching toward his teammates with all of the dreadful certainty with which he had chased after the bandit who had tried to run away.

"Gaara!" Naruto screamed after him, trying to stumble his way to physically stop his psychotic captor. This was his first mission, his first real test from Kazekage-sama (that wasn't specifically meant to kill him) and he would not accept failure. Especially not a failure involving the death of two of the Kazekage's children at the hands of the third, along with their Jounin instructor.

Plus, as mean as they all were, Naruto didn't want to see any of his comrades die.

He managed to get his feet working long enough to carry him around Gaara to stand in between him and the others. Baki had taken position in front of the other two, preparing to buy some time for them to escape since Gaara's bloodlust was even worse than usual today. Once they got started, Shukaku would probably be loosed pretty soon.

The endangered trio watched as their dead weight placed himself in Gaara's path, and they all thought the same thing: he will be the first to die, then.

"Gaara, wait, stop a minute!" Naruto said, holding his hands out to placate Gaara like a dangerous animal.

Gaara did not seem to be looking at him, he was staring right through Naruto, eyes wide and unblinking, blood rapidly drying on his face, and his sand creeping back out of the gourd, ready to strike.

"He's going to get himself killed." Temari said, baffled by the behaviour. Surely the fool knew this would end in his death, and for what? To act like some kind of hero? That just proved, more than ever, that he was not a Suna shinobi.

They watched Gaara, his face still murderous, walk right up to Menma, seem to perceive him at last, and then try to step around him. Temari's eyes were wide with disbelief, that their brother would spare this stranger even when he was enraged as he was.

The terrified trio watched Gaara step around Menma, then Menma step back in his way, and this bizarre dance repeated multiple times, with Gaara getting angrier and angrier the longer it went on. They mistakenly thought he was angry about being impeded, but the truth was the longer Gaara had to look at those red, purple and black handprints on his little brother's neck, the less he could think about anything but proving his existence.

Naruto could see this downturn and thought about what might pacify the big ball of crazy trying to get around him. Only one thing came to mind that might do the trick, that might bring Gaara back to whatever passed for his mediocre sanity.

Naruto stepped back in Gaara's way one last time and stepped in, curling his arms around Gaara's shoulder and hugging him.

The observers were even more stunned than Gaara himself, seeing Menma embrace Gaara like that when the boy was still covered in the blood of the men and women he had slaughtered.

Gaara felt something restraining him but as it was otouto he could not rip apart the offender. How could he get out of this hold without hurting him?

Naruto held Gaara, which was difficult because it was super awkward and Gaara was squirming, trying to escape and murder the others, but Naruto stayed firm. He leaned his head back to get a look at Gaara's face but he was still glaring at Temari, Kankuro and Baki who were frozen under the intense hatred and chakra flowing off of the strongest member of their team.

"It's okay. I'm okay, onii-san." Naruto said.

Gaara stopped shifting and his sand stopped creeping around Naruto's back. Naruto carefully released his grip, pulling away slowly in case Gaara was just pretending to have calmed down, and stepped back, his hands on Gaara's shoulders.

Gaara looked perfectly normal (as normal as he ever did) and brushed Naruto's hands off of him irritably, like he wasn't covered in blood and other bodily matter.

"He got Gaara to calm down!" Kankuro whispered.

Temari and Baki were in no condition to reply, instead they gaped at the scene like they had witnessed a miracle, which they might have. No one calmed Gaara down except the Kazekage using his gold dust techniques.

"Temari, Kankuro, redeem your uselessness by treating otouto's wounds." Gaara commanded, stepping back so they could do it.

Naruto reached up to his bruised neck and wondered if that was what Gaara was referring to when he said 'wounds'. "It's fine, really. I'm a quick healer, dattebayo!" Naruto said, smiling. His smile faltered when Gaara turned back to him with that increasingly familiar scowl, chastising him for some perfectly reasonable behaviour or observation.

It was Temari who eventually stepped forward, reaching into her pouch for her readied bandages. Naruto's bruises didn't need dressing but Gaara's show of concern was enough to compel her complicity. She wrapped up his neck, careful not to tie it too tight, and then stepped back so Gaara could inspect her work and sweep Naruto back into the gourd despite Naruto's loud and abruptly ended protests.

"Let's go." Gaara said, testily. Temari took a chance, since Gaara appeared to be back in his default mood. She stepped forward and used a cloth to wipe the blood from his face.

He glared at her again as she did it but did not move to stop her, waiting patiently as she finished clearing the worst of the sand-caked blood from his cheek and brow.

He did not thank her but he also did not kill her so she stepped back and smiled to herself. Kankuro had watched this latest oddity with the same confusion he had felt when watching Gaara cease his murderous rage from a hug, of all things.

Like the attack and near slaughter of three fifths of Team Baki had never happened, they started their long march once again, with Gaara in the lead this time and Baki behind him, where he could watch him, and Kankuro and Temari bringing up the rear.

"You saw what happened, right?" Kankuro asked.

"Yes I saw. I just cleaned his face without him threatening to murder me." Temari shot back.

"Is he changing?"

"I don't know. If he is, it's for the better. If not, there's more to him than we thought."

"More to Gaara?"

"Shut up and keep watch. If anyone attacks again, we don't want to get caught off guard." She told him, turning back to look at the horizon for any signs of approach.

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A/N: Nothing much to say at the moment. As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please take a moment to leave a review. Next to be updated is Hidden Inhumanity unless I get distracted by another story first.

Before I forget, credit for Naruto's new outfit goes to Spiral of Destiny, my wonderful captive artist who put it together for me. While Naruto might not appreciate his new look, I love it.